English World-Wide - Volume 41, Issue 2, 2020

Abstract

World Englishes are the product of contact between English and other languages in multilingual habitats through the nativization phase. Yet the actual contexts of code-switching that contribute to the emerging regional variety have scarcely been described. This research focuses on code-switching among bilingual Filipino students, to illuminate this dynamic phase in varietal evolution. Using data from an online academic forum, it analyses the code-switching patterns within and between turns in the discussion, to see how they facilitate or inhibit the mobilization of Tagalog elements into code-mixed English. The data show intense levels of code-switching especially within individual turns. At the change of turns, the sequentiality principle is often set aside, and code-switching often involves Tagalog discourse markers and other function words. These include some elements noted two decades earlier (Bautista 1998) as potential features of evolving Philippine English, which have never been codified. The new data provide empirical evidence of how non-English elements are progressively taken up into World Englishes, in interactive use of English among bi-/multilingual speakers.

Abstract

Descriptions of Australian Aboriginal English list the neutralisation of the Standard English contrast between so-called voiced and voiceless stops as one characteristic feature. This paper reports on the results of an acoustic analysis of data collected in a production task by monolingual speakers of Standard Australian English in Sydney, of Aboriginal English on Croker Island, Northern Territory, and bilingual speakers of Iwaidja/Aboriginal English and Kunwinjku/Aboriginal English on Croker Island. The results show that average values for Voice Onset Time, the main correlate of the “stop voicing contrast” in English, and Closure Duration collected from Aboriginal speakers of English do not significantly differ from that of speakers of Standard Australian English, irrespective of language background. This result proves that the stop contrast is not neutralised by these Aboriginal speakers of English. However, it can be shown that phonetic voicing manifesting itself in Voice Termination Time is a prevalent and characteristic feature of Aboriginal English on Croker Island. This feature aligns Aboriginal English on Croker Island with local Aboriginal languages and differentiates it from Standard Australian English.

Abstract

Studies on the pronunciation of Namibian English (NamE) have shown strong evidence for ethnically conditioned variation within the NamE vowel system. Thus, NamE should not be seen as a monolithic entity but rather as a group of ethnically and/or socially conditioned varieties. In this paper, we undertake a first approach to Baster English, a potential ethnic variety of NamE. The Rehoboth Basters constitute a unique ethnically mixed Afrikaans-speaking group from South Africa, who settled in Namibia in the 19th century and are known for their strong sense of a separate local and ethnic identity. Triangulating the results of a quantitative questionnaire on language attitudes and acoustic analyses of vocalic features in informants’ pronunciation, we demonstrate how the Basters’ unique identity translates into linguistic practice in a multi-ethnic and multilingual environment.

Abstract

Using comparative sociolinguistic methods, we probe the underlying mechanisms governing the variation between possessive determiners, my bike, and the definite article, the bike, in possessive contexts in two mainstream English varieties (Canadian and British English, N = 6,217). Results indicate the is stable and pervasive, occurring approximately 30 percent of the time with personal domain possessed nouns. For some nouns, e.g. dog and cat, the occurs over 75 percent of the time. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary records possessive the as chiefly British, while Quirk et al. (1985: 271–272) observe that only low-status men use it; however, we find no difference between the UK and Canada, nor a significant gender or education effect in either dataset. When we model the variation between forms according to conceptions of ownership, we find an underlying system for encoding communal possession that transcends social categories and dialect: the more that possession is communal, the more the is used.

This article reviews Language Variation on Jamaican RadioEUR 105.009789027249203

This article reviews Australian Aboriginal English: Change and continuity in an adopted languageEUR 109.959781501503368